Our goal is to provide relevant information for AEC and facilities management professionals, including posts on building information modeling, facilities management, Autodesk building solutions such as AutoCAD Architecture and Revit, and ARCHIBUS software.

08/10/2017

Rethinking Roofs in Revit for Residential

By Kenniston Crane

One of the biggest concerns that I hear from residential architects and builders, regarding making the switch to Revit, is that they do not believe it handles framing as well as their 2D AutoCAD sets do. There are many ways of doing complex framing in Revit, should you decide to do so. However, as I discuss in this white paper, you can actually frame out not only traditionally framed roof systems, but also trusses and timber walls. All in Revit, with native geometry! And all of this within minutes, compared to individually modelling these elements, which can take much longer times thereby making it cost prohibitive to do so!

So why might you even consider doing this? As a residential architect, you may already be providing some basic framing plans and details- much of it being standardized across projects. With these tools in Revit, however, you can carry that value over into your building model and take-offs, helping you to understand how design decisions are affecting the budget in terms of both cost and time. This can help the home owner make important decisions early on, and help you provide an even better product for the builder. The builder can then use this information to get a more competitive estimate, helping to drive the construction costs down and without sacrificing design intent!

the more people that do this, the more they would understand how much of a great unknown value they have on their hands. It is, however, currently a free tool for those who need a quick fix for simplistic cases.

A more practical solution for structural engineers right now is VisionRez. It was created by one of the top wood truss manufacturers in the US to service these needs. But this particular add on does come with a fee (unlike this tool from Autodesk). Hope that helps!